North Korea’s launch of a Hwasong-12 IRBM over Japan on 28 August, a second launch on 15 September (once again overflying Japan), and its test of what is either a boosted fission weapon or an …
Articles by: "Malcolm Davis"
The force structure proposed in the 2016 Defence White Paper lacks a long-range deterrence capability—at least until we get a credible fleet of submarines sometime in the distant 2040s. Short of nuclear threats, which are …
China looks set to add a ‘Space Silk Road’ to its proposed land-based Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road, expanding the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI; formerly known as One Belt, …
North Korea’s nuclear weapon and long-range missile programs are gathering momentum, according to a US Defense Intelligence Agency report, commented on by the Washington Post. The Post story suggests that North Korea has successfully produced …
Russian media recently claimed that the Federation’s new intercontinental ballistic missile will be able to penetrate even America’s most effective defence systems—but are they right? Russia claims the new RS-28 Sarmat heavy ICBM, being introduced …
Russia faces real challenges in sustaining its military modernisation efforts, given low oil prices, Western sanctions and the cost of operations in Ukraine and Syria. Despite that, Moscow looks set to continue the program. At …
In an earlier article on the USAF X-37B space plane I noted that the Obama administration’s 2010 space policy sought to avoid space weaponisation and ASATs. Washington’s current policy reinforces international norms against space warfare …
In announcing a separation from the US, the Philippine’s President Duterte recently flagged a closer relationship with China, stating, ‘America has lost…I’ve realigned myself in your [China’s] ideological flow’. Although Duterte subsequently walked back from …
A transformation in military space capabilities is occurring hundreds of kilometres above the Earth’s surface as the US Air Force X-37B Space Plane logs over 500 days in orbit in its latest mission. The unmanned …
The 2016 Defence White Paper (DWP16) signals that ‘options to replace the Super Hornets in the late 2020s will be considered in the early 2020s in the light of developments in technology and the strategic …
The Philippines under President Rodrigo Duterte’s erratic foreign and defence policy is lurching from one foreign policy crisis to the next. There’s deepening concern about extrajudicial killings that are piling bodies up and tarnishing the …
A common refrain when discussing the future of airpower is that ‘the F-35 is the last manned fighter’ and the future belongs to unmanned systems. The expanding use of unmanned air systems (UAS) such as …